Conventionally, there have been known various types of structures of a component mounting apparatus and method. For example, there is one component mounting apparatus, which is provided with a component supply cassette for supplying components, a head section that has a suction nozzle for holding a component supplied from the component supply cassette, an X-Y robot for moving the head section, a recognition camera for recognizing the component held by the suction nozzle, and an X-Y table for holding a board on which the component recognized by the recognition camera and held by the suction nozzle is placed. The apparatus is constructed so as to hold the board by the X-Y table, thereafter hold the component received from the component supply cassette by virtue of the suction nozzle with the head section moved by driving the X-Y robot, recognize the component held by the suction nozzle by virtue of the recognition camera, and thereafter place the component held by the suction nozzle onto the board held by the X-Y table.
However, the above-mentioned structure is able to perform component mounting on only one board even if a plurality of suction nozzles are arranged, and there has been a demand for performing component mounting on a plurality of boards in order to increase a mounting tact (mounting time), or productivity.
Accordingly, it can be considered to arrange two component mounting apparatuses of the aforementioned construction connected together. However, an installation floor area is doubled, and productivity per unit area cannot be improved. Furthermore, when a component mounting operation is performed independently by two component mounting apparatuses and it is attempted to accurately perform a component recognizing operation in one component mounting apparatus, vibrations are disadvantageously transmitted to the apparatus in its entirety if a component placing operation is performed in the other component mounting apparatus, and this results in reducing recognition accuracy.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve the aforementioned issues and provide a component mounting apparatus and method capable of improving component recognition or board recognition accuracy while independently performing each component mounting operation, and improving productivity per unit area when two component mounting apparatuses are arranged for performing a series of component mounting operations constituted of component holding, component recognition, and component placement.